


the butterfly effect

by allieteration



Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, F/M, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23407420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allieteration/pseuds/allieteration
Summary: in this long-form one-shot, soraya sangue has met her match with grief, and transcends through the veil of death with her bloodkeeper abilities to express her love to best friend, lily spencer, for the last time.
Relationships: Jax Matsuo/Main Character (Bloodbound), Lily Spencer/Original Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	the butterfly effect

**Author's Note:**

> this long-form one-short for playchoices’ visual novel, bloodbound, is set ensuing the tragedy of book three, chapter fifteen, when lily spencer succumbs to the evil forces of rheya apostolous in a heroic act to rescue your main character (in my case, soraya sangue).
> 
> i was devastated by lily’s untimely demise, and i, personally, wanted to bid my final adieu to her vicariously through soraya.
> 
> naturally, choices are apart of our daily existence, but combined with this pixelated mobile game, we’re tasked with the decisions that affect our characters’ livelihoods. choices—are everything. they shape who we are and will be. defining that through the butterfly effect concept inspired me to take this narrative a step further.
> 
> please, don’t forget to drop a kudos and/or comment, and follow my tumblr, @elyystel, for additional content!

the nighttime atmosphere had blended into dawn like a cocktail of toxins, and soraya was sifting through a cardboard box of lily’s belongings, the periwinkle and strawberry skies tiptoeing across her floorboards of her shared apartment with jax, splayed out like a film of dust.she stumbled across an acid-washed jean jacket that soraya had purchased for lily as a birthday present a handful of years prior, and when she lifted it to her nose, inhaling—she smelled her.it had an aroma of armani perfume and red wine, and soraya cascaded through time to the eventide at a bar that lily and her frequented before… _before everything_.

she reminisced on a three o’clock in the morning sunday, lily’s elbow bolstering her contoured chin as she lazily sipped on her beverage, the bartender signaling last call from behind the oak countertop and the taps.

“you know what’s funny?” lily slurred, dismissing the bartender‘s vexed grimaces that they were still there, inhibiting him for closing shop.“i think about every choice i’ve made that’s lead me to here.to you.every mistake and victory.they call it the _‘butterfly effect’_.that one decision can set a new outcome ablaze.it’s crazy, right?”

“you’re drunk,” soraya huffed, cracking a grin at her companion’s existentialism.she tucked lily’s jacket across her shoulders and tugged at her arms to stand her upright from the barstool.“it’s late.we should get home.”

“soraya,” lily mumbled, consuming the last droplets of her wine and waving to the aggravated bartender before being guided through the threshold of the establishment and onto the doorstep.“i think—i think i might be sick.”

“uh, alright,” soraya blinked before hastening over to an alleyway dumpster adjacent to the bar.lily vomited the contents of her stomach into the abyss of the echoing dumpster, and soraya leaned against the brick at the end of the alleyway, chuckling to herself.“a little _too_ much fun tonight, huh?”

“how are you not as drunk as i am?we matched glass for glass,” lily complained, the constellations above them glimmering alongside the moonshine, alighting the otherwise melancholy alleyway.

“i ate before we went out, and—well, _i’m_ not a lightweight,” soraya shook her head, the fringe of her tresses brushing against her cheeks saturated in blush and highlight.

“screw you,” lily jested, and when the acidic mixture had verifiably been expelled from her body, she straightened, wiping at the corners of her mouth with her sleeve.“i feel better.”

“that’s the idea,” soraya smiles sympathetically, and linked arms with lily.“earlier, when you were talking about our decisions toppling over…like dominoes…do you think we have a destiny?or do you think it all comes down to choice?”

“why do you ask?” lily arched an eyebrow, their heeled shoes clacking against the pavement.the nighttime air was crisp, and the streets were electric with a feeling that anything could happen.

“i guess…i don’t know…i wonder what it all boils down to.if we have a say, or if it’s already written in stone,” soraya’s eyes were transfixed on the ground, which was soiled with litter from the pedestrians of new york city.

“i think we do have a say.i really do,” lily answered, her expression thoughtful.“i want to believe we do at least.otherwise…what’s it all for?we‘re machines?working tirelessly to reach our fate?no.if video games taught me anything, it’s that you always have a choice.to do good or cause devastation.i think you’re going to do good, soraya. _real good_.”

“soraya?” jax’s whisper shattered what remained of her reverie, his silhouette in the doorway, tall and brooding and protective.

soraya glanced up, teardrops pooled along her waterline.she sniffled and cleared her throat before responding to him, “i’m okay.i am.i want to get what’s left properly stored away.”

“do you need any help?i was about to head out to meet with serafine, but it can wait,” jax inquired, furrowing his brow.she didn’t want him to recognize that she had been weeping again.not now.

“no—go see her.she needs you right now,” soraya nodded, and jax, his hands stuffed into his pockets, stepped forward and reached out to stroke her cheekbones, planting a peck onto her forehead.

“give me a ring if you need anything, understand?” jax tapped on her chin with his calloused thumb, and soraya licked her lips, nodding.with that, he was gone.soraya checked the time on the clock on their nightstand before deciding on her next plan of action.it wasn’t to seal the boxes of lily’s belongings, but instead—to talk to her.

an hour later, soraya was at the vampire temple, the decrepit and overgrown location loud with the whistling of the wind like a gargantuan windchime clanging together.

lily’s adorned urn was settled onto a platform at the center of the temple, and soraya’s breath hitched when it manifested into her peripheral.she was having second thoughts; perhaps this was, in fact, a poor strategy of healing—and yet, the urn radiated energy that soraya couldn’t deny or swivel to face away from.

soraya stepped forward, the soles of her lace-up shoes colliding with the everlasting moss billowing out from between the cracks of the concrete flooring.she opened her mouth, her voice crackling like a whisper or a battle cry, “it feels strange…out of body…to talk to you like this.i was _spoiled_.spoiled because i had become used to talking to you, the real you—those big brown eyes and purple hair staring back at me.your wisecracks and embraces and goodnights and good-mornings.everything good about people all rolled into one human-turned-vampire.”

soraya shook her head, teardrops stinging at her sienna irises, and condemned herself— _ ‘what am i doing?’ _ —reaching out her manicured fingertips to touch the plated aurelia urn.when her flesh stroked against it, she sighed exasperatedly before her vision blackened and an overwhelmingly lustrous light flooded around her.

“took you long enough,” a voice beamed as soraya regained her sense of self and her environment—she was in a galaxy-clustered void, one she hadn’t been in before, and yet, one that she recognized.

_ lily. _

“lil?how—” soraya began, her eyes darting all around the canyon of memories and inner-workings of lily spencer’s mindframe.

“bloodkeeper perks,” lily shrugged, still grinning, ornamented in her everyday attire, her hair still purple, her eyes still scintillating—but faraway.this was the real lily, but soraya fathomed that she wasn’t here.

“i’ve never communicated in minds with…with—” soraya started, searching for the appropriate terminology for these circumstances.

“the dead?” lily chuckled, adjusting her black-rimmed glasses.it was feasible to offend her, but it required an abundance of maliciousness, and lily could never be provoked by soraya.especially now.“i didn’t know that you could either.not until recently.i’ve been waiting for you to visit me and discover this.”

“can i ask you something?” soraya queried, suddenly acknowledging that their time together may be limited.

“anything,” her counterpart twinkled, unwavering and not hesitant.

“do you remember…before all of this?we talked about destiny and choices.you told me…you told me that i was going to do good and be good.ever since you left me—left _us_ —i’ve had this painstaking feeling that i failed you.that maybe if i hadn’t taken that job at raines corp, and maybe if i hadn’t dragged you into this, you’d be here.and we’d be living normal lives holed up in our apartment, eating a nauseating amount of pizza and playing video games and watching comic book-inspired movies.and we’d be okay.”

lily didn’t answer for long enough that soraya questioned whether lily’s essence and their psychic bond was already dissipating, but finally—she spoke, “there’s more to life than pizza and video games and movies, soraya.and there’s more to death than waiting for your last call. _i’m proud of us_.i’m proud of the things we saw and did and conquered.we saved the world more times than i can count on one hand.most of all, we saved each other.not to mention, you found jax.your love.and i’m endlessly grateful to have been around for all of it.even the bad and the ugly.”

“why aren’t you angry?” soraya whimpered, peering at her through soaked eyelashes, her expression desperate.

“i was.at first.and then the memories—all of the remembrances of us and adrian and kamilah and jax came rushing back to me,” lily acknowledged, and reached out to clutch soraya’s hands in her own.soraya sighed at her touch.“you  _ have _ done good, soraya.you gave me things i could’ve only have dreamt of.i’m sorry that i won’t be there to see where you go from here, but. . .”

lily’s image flickered like a vhs tape, glitching in vintage technicolor, and soraya uttered before their time together was drained like tea bags for summertime sweet tea on a porch in the south, “i love you, lily spencer.always.my best friend.”

before soraya was hurled back into the reality of the temple environing her and lily’s urn before her, her arm still outstretched, she could decipher lily returning the “i love you” through the transcendent layers of dimension and space.that was all she needed, and that was all that they were: piercing a veil of the universe and proving that, no matter what, she would be there for soraya.even in the end.


End file.
